Gregg Cox is the head of the Public Integrity Unit in the Travis County DA’s office. He says they’ll be looking at how contracts were awarded.

“We notified CPRIT to preserve and protect from destruction all records, documents, computer records, and everything like that,” Cox tells KUT News. “And at this point we are gathering information to begin this process.”

The investigation comes after CPRIT revealed it awarded $11 million in taxpayer funds to a Dallas biotechnology firm without the required scientific or business reviews. The Texas Attorney General’s office has launched a separate examination of the awards process.

Meanwhile, CPRIT’s executive director Bill Gimson has submitted a letter of resignation, saying he can no longer be effective as the head of the $3 billion agency.

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The state’s $3 billion effort to battle cancer was delivered a major blow this month when 18 scientific reviewers resigned. (You can read most of their resignation letters here.) Many quit in solidarity with their Nobel Prize-winning scientific director, who has also quit. Most of them allege that the organization was favoring politics, rather than science, when picking which projects to fund.

The head of the state’s $3 billion cancer fighting agency sought to reassure some of its biggest supporters today after a recent wave of resignations at the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas. CPRIT’s executive director Bill Gimson delivered an opening address at a three-day conference that started today in northwest Austin.

It was Gimson’s first public speech since 33 scientific peer reviewers resigned in protest over funding decisions and accusations of favoritism. Gimson acknowledged the setback but defended the agency’s process.

“It’s my promise that CPRIT will maintain that gold-standard peer review process, always pick the very, very best game changing projects, do our best to get life-saving products to Texas cancer patients as quickly as possible,” Gimson said from the podium.